Chris Brown’s ‘Fortune’ album cover.

The sales projections for Chris Brown’s ‘Fortune’ album were right on target as the record has indeed topped the Billboard 200 with less than 140K copies sold. However, there was another artist who managed to exceed all expectations on the Billboard Hot 100 with the success of one of her biggest hits.

‘Fortune’ sold over 134K copies to enter the Billboard 200 at the top of the chart. However, the performance of the record, which also topped the UK Albums Chart last weekend, was grossly weaker than that of Brown’s previous release, ‘F.A.M.E.’. The latter LP sold 270K copies in its first week in 2011. To date, Brown’s combined album sales in the US, including those of ‘Fortune’, stand as 5.60 million copies.

While Brown had a slow start on the Billboard 200, Nicki Minaj accomplished a major feat on the Hot 100. ‘Starships’, the first official single from her gold-certified ‘Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded’ album, has remained in the top 10 of the lineup for 21 weeks. That means that the song has nabbed the record for the most consecutive weeks that a top 10-debuting title has remained in that region of the chart from its arrival. ‘Starships’ debuted at #9 during the week of March 3rd 2012.

See the leading releases in the top 10 of both Billboard 200 and the Hot 100 below:

Billboard 200

1. Chris Brown – ‘Fortune’ – 134K (debut)

2. Katy Perry – ‘Teenage Dream’ – 80K (total: 2.35 M)

3. Justin Bieber – ‘Believe’ – 70K (total: 560K)

4. Maroon 5 - ‘Overexposed’ – 68K (total: 289K)

5. Link Park – ‘Living Things’ – 64K (total: 288K)

6. Gotye - ‘Making Mirrors’ – 44K (total:

7. fun. - ‘Some Nights’ – 43K (total: 416K)

8. Kenny Chesney - ‘Welcome to the Fishbowl’ – 43K (total: 298K)

9. Adele – ’21′ – 41K (total: 9.53 M)

10 Black Keys - ‘El Camino’ – 37K (total: 890K)

Billboard Hot 100

1. Carly Rae Jepsen – ‘Call Me Maybe’

2. Maroon 5 – ‘Payphone (Ft. Wiz Khalifa)’

3. Gotye’s – ‘Somebody That I Used to Know (Ft. Kimbra)’

4. Katy Perry – ‘Wide Awake’

5. Ellie Goulding – ‘Lights’

6. Rihanna – ‘Where Have You Been’

7. David Guetta – ‘Titanium (Ft. Sia)’

8. fun. – ‘We are Young (Ft. Janelle Monae)’

9. Nicki Minaj – ‘Starships’

10. Usher – ‘Scream’

Watch Minaj’s ‘Starships’ video below:

Thoughts?